The present invention relates generally to the field of online analytic processing of data and, in particular, to patent and web-related analytics tools and methodologies for assisting in the identification of potential white space opportunities.
Modern business intelligence routinely makes extensive use of customer and transactional data obtained from databases stored in data warehouses. Such business intelligence may typically be obtained by posing an analytical search and/or query to one or more associated relational databases. Intellectual property (IP) intelligence, in particular, may be critical to the competitive advantage of a business entity. The business entity may seek to maximize the value of its IP by investigating and identifying areas of relevant patent “white space” in an industry, where white space is a term generally used to designate one or more technical fields in which little or no IP may exist.
In the current state of the art, however, the process of identifying white space can be time-consuming and ineffective. For example, conducting a search via the Internet may require multiple labor-intensive and time-consuming sessions. Moreover, the search results may require further manual processing to yield an output that may or may not be of value to the interested business entity.
As can be seen, there is a need for better methodologies and tools dedicated to the identification of potential white space opportunities.